7 Tips for Listening to Guided Meditations
One of my favourite mental health practices is meditating and listening to guided meditations. This practice is becoming more well-known and people are turning to guided meditations to help heal and strengthen their mind, while balancing mind, body, spirit. But what does this mean? What is a guided meditation and how does it help me to heal and grow? Today I am going to unfold the topic of guided meditations and give you some of my top tips when listening to a meditation.
A guided meditation is the process of quieting your mind from any thoughts, feelings or emotions that may be lingering around; checking in with how you feel in the moment; and being open to any healing, learning or growing the meditation has to offer.
I connect to guided meditations to help create a positive, uplifting environment and headspace to live in. Not only do they help me to release any limiting beliefs about myself but they also instil confidence, support, and self-love. When listening to a guided meditation I am able to put my trust in the universe and the bigger picture, heal from any negative experience I may have had earlier, or even set intentions and dreams for my future.
Whenever I finish a guided meditation I feel refuelled, lighter, more peaceful, and connected to my authentic self and my truth.
Here are my top tips for listening to a guided meditation and including them in your mental health practice:
1. HAVE AN OPEN MIND
Especially if you are new to meditations it is so important to go into the entire process with an open mind. Each person experiences a guided meditation differently from the next, so be open to learning about yourself through the process and don’t create any expectations about how it should go or how you should feel afterwards.
I have been practicing meditations and listening to guided meditations for over 12 years and over time have been able to strengthen my abilities through this practice.
2. USE YOUR IMAGINATION
A lot of people talk about their third eye and being able to “see” things. This can be very confusing for those who are new to guided meditations. The best way to describe how you should be able to “see” what you are being led through is by using your imagination. Remember when you were a kid and playing with your friends included being able to make things up on the spot and picturing the story that you were playing in, that’s when our imaginations were their strongest.
It’s important to note that at first you may not be able to see anything and that is ok. When I first started meditating I was discouraged because it sounded like everyone else was experiencing something magical and I wasn’t able to see any of it. Don’t be hard on yourself, just do what you can in the moment.
3. CREATE A PEACEFUL SPACE
In order to give yourself the best chance of moving through this meditation and integrating all that it has to offer you NEED to create a peaceful space for yourself. This can include a few different things for example, turning off all distractions.
When you go to the gym or for a run or which ever physical activity you enjoy, do you notice how you are most productive when you leave your phone alone?!
Believe it or not, but the same is true for when we are stimulating our mind, or working through any mental health practices. It is so important to give yourself the space, time and energy you deserve on healing and strengthening your mind. So turn off that phone, or silence it if you are using it to listen to the meditation. In creating this peaceful space you also need to make sure that you are in a room where you will not get disturbed, so close the door and let everyone know you need 5-15 minutes (or however long the meditation is) of undistracted time.
Also, your peaceful space should be some where that is already calming and relaxing to you. If you have chosen the TV room where there tends to be a lot of action and energy flowing then you might not be able to fully relax and heal through the meditation.
If you have the opportunity to, then I highly suggest clearing and cleansing your space before moving through the meditation. This can include using smoke medicine to cleanse any negative energy that might be lingering. Again, this is why I think the TV room, or any busy space that tends to house many people, is not an ideal location because there are too many energies that could be lingering. This could disturb your process through the meditation.
My ideal location for listening to a guided meditation is my bedroom because I cleanse and clear it often, I tend to be the only person in this space, and it has a closed door for me to get some undistracted, alone time.
4. START SLOW
If you have never listened to a guided meditation before I suggest you start out with a shorter one. A meditation that is 5 minutes is a good start because it allows you time to focus, but it’s not too long where you could get distracted. After listening to a couple you can slowly increase the time until you find the perfect length for you.
5. HAVE A SPECIFIC REASON
In order to get the most out of a meditation it’s best to first acknowledge a reason for why you want to listen to a meditation and how you would like to feel afterwards. Once you have a specific reason you can look for a meditation that will guide you in that direction.
For instance, if I have low motivation to accomplish something, am feeling doubtful that it will get accomplished or believe even after accomplishing it I will still fail then I know what I need most at this moment is support and confidence. I want to release these limiting beliefs and in turn feel supported in whatever direction I choose to go. So I will look for a releasing mediation or a meditation that helps with support and confidence.
Sometimes your reason may just be to connect to peace and disconnect from stress, but as long as you know where you are wanting to heal and strengthen it will be much easier for you to find a meditation to listen to.
6. LISTEN TO A PREVIEW
I once listened to an entire audio book and I did not like the reader’s voice and I ended up disliking the book because of it. Eventually I read the book and thoroughly enjoyed it because I wasn’t distracted by a voice I didn’t enjoy listening to.
If the reader had of been trying to lead me through a guided meditation there would have been no way I could successfully finish the meditation, let alone integrate any of the healing mind, body, spirit.
It is so important that the voice you are listening to is calming and relaxing, not irritating and grating. Sometimes we need to connect to the person who is leading the meditation first, when we get to know, like and trust someone we are much more open and vulnerable in allowing ourselves to heal and grow with their assistance, for instance through a guided meditation.
7. GIVE MEDITATIONS A CHANCE
As for anything in life, you will not get all the answers, all the success, all the healing and all the satisfaction out of listening to only one guided meditation. This is a practice that takes time and energy from you to be able to integrate the healing and growth. Over time you will strengthen your imagination or third eye muscle so it will become easier to see where you are being led. Also, you will be able to quiet your mind quicker and easier, allowing you to gain control of your feelings and emotions and the ability to learn and grow from them.
Guided Meditations have helped me to find balance mind, body, spirit, while healing from my past, releasing all that no longer serves me, learning from lessons that are brought forward, and growing through my personal journey.
I love how versatile guided meditations are and I am so excited for you to grow and heal through this mental health practice.
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